


I Hate This, But I Love This, Too

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [156]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Arguing, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Seemingly Certain Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 16:58:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16141550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: In Tony’s defense, he was sure they were toast.





	I Hate This, But I Love This, Too

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: If we're going to die, then dammit, let's go out with a bang. Prompt from this [generator](http://bleep0bleep.tumblr.com/promptsnsfw).

In Tony’s defense, he was sure they were toast. Not that he didn’t have faith in his own ingenuity or Cap’s strategic application of fists, but the circumstances they were staring down demanded a hell of a lot more than their powers combined.

Which was why, he tells himself, sitting in a cave at the center of an actively dying planet, they were part of, you know, a _team_. And if said team hadn’t fucked off to parts unknown chasing the space serpent (seriously) who had knocked this planet from its axis in a fit of intergalactic pique and left Tony and Steve to solve what had seemed at the time the more straightforward problem of saving the world’s inhabitants from smashy doom, they wouldn’t be in this position, he and Steve; wouldn’t be trapped under miles of rock wrapped in the small comfort of having saved everybody else’s day except their own.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says somewhere in the dark.

“For what?”

“We shouldn’t have gone back for their book. We should’ve pushed off with the last transport, like you wanted to.”

Tony squints across the space, seriously missing his visor, wishing his visual interface hadn’t been so FUBAR’d by the fall. “Steve, hey. Don’t do that. Self-flagellation in this particular situation is 100% not helpful.”

A deep sigh. “I should’ve told their priest no. I should’ve said we’re leaving now and that’s it.”

“Maybe. But I understand why you didn’t.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. I saw the look on zur’s face. Or faces, what have you. That book was important to zur, these beings’ equivalent of the Ark of Turin or the Shroud of the Covenant.”

Steve chuckles. “I think you’ve got those backwards.”

“Probably. Point is: zur asked and you said yes.”

“And you came with me.”

“Exactly!” Tony slaps his hands in the dirt. "So if I’m going to die here because of your do-gooding heart, it’s totally my own fault.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“Look, where are you, Rogers? I know you and your super soldier peepers are fine, but I’m struggling in all this dark.”

He hears a rustle from across the ways, the shuffle of steps, and then Cap is settling down at his side, close enough so their shoulders sort of touch.

“Is that better?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, “much.”

They sit for a while, breathing steady, listening to the groan and crack of the world all around them.

“So we’re going to bite it here, huh?”

“Yeah,” Cap says. “It looks like. You’ve got no juice left in your suit.”

“Nope. And even you can’t punch your way through miles and fucking miles of weird outer space rock.”

“Not today, no.”

“Huh,” Tony says. “So. There’s something I should probably tell you. Since we’re about to be crushed to death and all.”

He can feel Cap turn towards him. “Yeah? What’s that?”

“I have had the most goddamn stupidest crush on you for...hell, for years.”

“You--you what?”

Tony laughs, _laughs_ , because what else can he do staring down the barrel of his own mortality with the bane of his existence/the love of his life about to bite it by his side? “Steven Grant Rogers, I’ve wanted to climb you like a tree since practically the first day that we met.”

Steve snorts. “As I recall, you spent most of it yelling at me; challenging me every two seconds and generally being an ass. That the day you’re talking about?”

“Duh,” Tony says. “God, you really are sucky at this stuff, aren’t you?”

There’s an edge to Steve’s voice now. “How so? And _sucky_? That’s not a word.”

“It is, too, and I was bitching at you for two reasons: one, you were wrong; and two: you were so fucking gorgeous even while being wrong that I didn’t know what to do with myself.”

“Other than to yell. Is that it?”

“Basically, yeah. And I wasn’t yelling. I just wasn’t kowtowing. I can understand how you’d be unable to distinguish the difference, what with all the smoke Fury was blowing up your ass.”

“You,” Cap says, edging toward a head full of steam, “are such an arrogant asshole sometimes, Tony, you know that?”

“No shit. But usually with good reason.”

“No,” Cap snaps, “arrogance is your default. Deliberation, consideration: they’re your Kryptonite, Stark.”

“Bullshit. I consider plenty; it’s just the longer that I do, the less likely I am to agree with you. Doesn’t mean I don’t still think you’re hot.”

Steve’s breath hitches like a record scratch. “What the _hell_.”

“It’s fine,” Tony says, spreading his hands through the shadows, through the close and hollow dark. “Look, I’m just trying to clear my conscious here at the end of my life, but if you don’t want to hear about it, fine. I’ll let you live your last minutes in relative peace.”

“I can’t believe this is what we’re talking about.”

“It’s not. Forget it.” Tony’s face feels hot, a heat that curls up and over his ears, and damn if he’s going to waste his last breaths on feeling embarrassed, god. So he said a thing he shouldn’t have, admitted something that in any other circumstances, even Doom couldn’t drag out of him, and Steve’s shot him down pretty fucking spectacularly, and yes, every part of his brain that told him so, you were right, he was wrong, ok? “Jesus, Cap. Forget I said anything.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” Steve says, stern and gravel, “I’d rather not.”

Then his hand’s on Tony’s neck, a warm, solid cuff, and he’s pulling, turning Tony’s body until they’re curled into each other, face to face.

“It wasn’t day one for me,” Steve says. “Probably more like day 200 and something. But regardless, I don’t want to kick the bucket without laying one on you at least once.”

There’s a semi-hysterical bubble in Tony’s throat-- _lay one on me_? _thanks, Grandpa_ \--but only semi because when Steve kisses him, opens that broad, soft mouth above and then into his own, that sound drowns in the rush of Steve’s breath, the eager noises he makes when Tony goes all in and kisses him back.

There are rocks jamming into his shoulders and poking him in the thighs and the knees. What’s left of his armor is busted and he’s got bruises everywhere, big ones, the kind that’d turn yellow if given time, but time’s what they don’t have and Steve more than makes up for it. Even through the shield of his suit, Tony can feel every twitch of his muscle, every shudder, especially when Tony snags the thick curve of his hip and bites at the swoop of Steve’s lower lip.

“Oh, god,” Steve groans, “oh, god, Tony. Come on.”

Tony laughs, rubs the sound against Steve’s fevered cheek. “Not going anywhere, big guy, believe me. Right now, I’m all yours.”

That gets him yanked into Steve’s lap, gets Steve’s hands tucked under the swell of his ass, and Tony might be ashamed of his own impatience, the way he leans back into that solid steel grip even as he rocks his hips up, looking for friction, except that they’re dying, are soon to be crushed, and fuck if he can’t think of a better way to go that with his tongue in Steve’s mouth and his dick winding up and up towards stiff.

“Fuck,” he hisses between kisses, “I’m sorry I never got to ride your cock. I bet you’ve got a pretty one, don’t you?”

Steve claws at his ass, at the base of his back. “It’d look even prettier sinking inside of you.”

“Yeah? You think about that a lot?”

“Mmmm. Yes.”

Tony traces his tongue around the edge of Steve’s mouth. “When?”

“When did I think about fucking you?” Steve asks.

“Yeah.”

There’s a roar above them, the close shatter of rock, and they press together tighter, try to drown out the world inside the circle of each other’s arms.

“Any time you were mad at me, or I was pissed at you.”

Tony grins. “So all the time, basically.”

One of Steve’s hands snakes up his back and forms a fist in Tony’s hair. “Uh huh. You’d say something infuriating and I’d have to stop myself from marching over and licking all that stupid from your mouth.”

Something in Tony goes jelly. “Oh, fuck.”

“It was better when we were with people,” Steve rasps, “but god, when we were alone, you don’t know how many times I had to stop myself, how many times I had get away from you and get a hand on myself and think about coming all over your face.”

“That’d shut me up, is that what you thought?”

Steve laughs. “Hell, no. I knew it wouldn’t. Even if you had my cock in your mouth, you’d still be running it, still me telling me all kinds of shit with your eyes.”

“And if you fucked me,” Tony says, “god only knows what would come out of my mouth.”

Cap tugs on Tony’s hair until their lips are flush, until they’re panting between each other’s breaths. “I hate that I’m never going to find out.”

It’s dirty and it’s wistful and Tony can’t help but kiss him for that, try to taste it, that strangle combination that is Steve like this, somehow both filthy and sweet.

“Tony?”

“What, honey?”

Steve bites gently at his chin, at the rough line of his jaw. “I think I could’ve let myself fall in love with you, if I’d given myself the chance.”

“Oh,” Tony says and lets it slip, the biggest confession of all; but hey: certain death, so fuck it. “Oh, god, Steve. Me, too.”

A pleased little hum. “Yeah?”

“Uh huh.”

Their mouths find each other again and the kiss is different this time, deeper, slow and unhurried despite the screeching of the cavern around them, the unmistakable snow of crushed rock tumbling down from above.

“I hate this,” Steve whispers. “But I love this, too. God, Tony. I’d never have guessed.”

There’s a prick at the edge of Tony’s eye, something that feels too much like a tear. “Well, now you don’t have to. Now you can go off to Valhalla or whatever with your mind at ease.”

“No,” Steve says, the split second before a gut-wrenching roar brings the planet down on their heads, “but at least I’ll know what I missed.”

 

***

Except, of course, the roar is not the planet biting it.

It’s Thor. Thor and War Machine and a whole army of suitbots, descending on them in a loud, rock-shattering storm.

Which, hurray, means they’re not dead.

Which--oh shit. Means they’re not dead.

 

*****

 

“I don’t really know how to say this,” Tony says, hovering at the edge of Steve’s door, after; contusions tended to, showers taken, a solid 12 hours of sleep behind him. “But I meant every goddamn word.”

Steve freezes. Looks up from his desk like a startled cat, pencil poised over thin air. “You did?”

Uh oh. “Yeah,” Tony says, doing his best not to bristle. “Didn’t you?”

The pencil keeps hovering. “I can’t believe you have to ask that.”

“Well, dying declaration and all that. I didn’t want to, you know. To assume.”

“You seemed--when we rescued, you seemed uneasy with me. With the whole thing.” Steve’s face is still now, an uncertain mask. “You didn’t look at me on the way back.”

Tony flushes. “Steve, we’d just gone from certain death and dying love to a Macy’s Day Parade saving ours lives. Forgive me for not being super chatty. I was kinda overwhelmed.”

“So was I. That’s why I wanted to be close to you. Hold your hand, put my arm around your shoulders, something.” Steve looks away. “But it seemed pretty clear you wanted me to steer clear.”

“I didn’t want you to steer clear forever, Rogers! God. I just couldn’t--” Tony runs a hand over his face. “Jesus, I was embarrassed, ok?”

“Why?”

“Why? Seriously, why? Because I’d just dumped my heart out all over the ground like cheap tequila and instead of stomping on it like I figured you would, goddamn it, you told me you liked me back!”

A beat. The sound of a pencil settling back on a desk. “You were mad at me because I agreed with you?”

“Yes! No! No, I wasn’t mad, I was--”

Steve is on his feet and then they’re nose-to-nose, a real-world mirror image of what’d happened in the cave. “You were impossible, Tony. Like always.”

Tony has to cut his eyes away. “It was overwhelming, that’s all. Hearing you say all that. And then having to process it.”

“What was there to process? I said what I meant. And I know you did, too.” Steve turns his knuckles over Tony’s cheek, a slow, easy graze that draws Tony back up to his gaze. “You don’t have to think everything to death, you know. Sometimes you can just do. Thinking you’re about to die is real good for that, believe me.”

It doesn’t take much for Tony to lift his arms and wind them around Steve’s neck.

It takes everything.

All that and a little bit more for Tony to tip his head back and peer up into Steve’s eyes. “The let’s try this,” he says. “Some lip, some tongue, some enthusiastic groping, and we’ll see how it goes. What do you say?”

Steve’s grin is electric and it tastes like the tip of his pencil, like the beginning of the best kind of dream. “I say, shut up and kiss me already, Stark.”


End file.
